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The lost year: What the pandemic cost teenagers
Propublica ^ | 3/8/21 | Alec MacGillis

Posted on 03/10/2021 3:06:35 PM PST by volunbeer

Everything looks the same on either side of the Texas-New Mexico border in the great oil patch of the Permian Basin. There are the pump jacks scattered across the plains, nodding up and down with metronomic regularity. There are the brown highway signs alerting travelers to historical markers tucked away in the nearby scrub. There are the frequent memorials of another sort, to the victims of vehicle accidents. And there are the astonishingly deluxe high school football stadiums. This is, after all, the region that produced “Friday Night Lights.”

The city of Hobbs, population just under 40,000, sits on the New Mexico side, as tight to the border as a wide receiver’s toes on a sideline catch. From the city’s eastern edge to the Texas line is barely more than two miles. From Hobbs to the Texas towns of Seminole and Denver City is a half-hour drive — next door, by the standards of the vast Southwestern plains.

In the pandemic year of 2020, though, the two sides of the state line might as well have been in different hemispheres.

(Excerpt) Read more at propublica.org ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:
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To: rlmorel

I sure do miss Michael Crichton. We lost him too soon. I was touching a little on this with my coworkers, at how so much of the heavy-handed COVID response has a lot to do with our current society’s refusal to accept any risk.


61 posted on 03/10/2021 8:32:17 PM PST by Gena Bukin
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To: Secret Agent Man

I hadn’t heard of vets limiting access ...


62 posted on 03/10/2021 8:33:08 PM PST by tbw2
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To: Gena Bukin

Michael Crichton: Environmentalism is a religion
http://principia-scientific.org/crichton-environmentalism-religion/


63 posted on 03/10/2021 8:33:37 PM PST by tbw2
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To: volunbeer

May have cost my son a track scholarship

No track much


64 posted on 03/10/2021 8:36:41 PM PST by wardaddy (P IN 1999 JIM THOMPSON WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE BUSHES ...WE WERE WRONG )
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To: tbw2

every place around me, cant go in with your pet


65 posted on 03/10/2021 8:37:11 PM PST by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not Averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: tbw2

even the emergency places


66 posted on 03/10/2021 8:37:33 PM PST by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not Averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Secret Agent Man

That was a great post, I was going to excerpt the parts in particular that stuck out for me (the last four paragraphs...no...five...) then I realized that excepting it was kind of a fruitless exercise...

Well done.


67 posted on 03/10/2021 8:37:43 PM PST by rlmorel ("I’d rather enjoy a risky freedom than a safe servitude." Robby Dinero, USMC Veteran, Gym Owner)
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To: volunbeer

Lol

All the sound and fury now but this very forum was overrun with panickers early on

Big time

Freepers>amnesia


68 posted on 03/10/2021 8:39:07 PM PST by wardaddy (P IN 1999 JIM THOMPSON WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE BUSHES ...WE WERE WRONG )
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To: tbw2

Thanks for that link...

Thing is...someday, we ARE going to get something bad, really bad, and forcing people to quarantine, vaccinate, and mask won’t be issues, because people will barricade themselves in their houses with firearms because...

It will be a real threat. This isn’t that threat.


69 posted on 03/10/2021 8:40:47 PM PST by rlmorel ("I’d rather enjoy a risky freedom than a safe servitude." Robby Dinero, USMC Veteran, Gym Owner)
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To: Gena Bukin

I feel bad for kids. I had an enormous amount of personal freedom as a kid, and I was free to do things that might be bad or hurt me.

Monkey bars. Those see-saw things that could cut off your fingers. Walking long distances from home and being exposed to attack by unsavory people. Playing tackle football with no protection. Those kinds of things.

I was free to make mistakes and I made plenty of them. Some things could have killed me and I would have never learned from them, but...they didn’t.


70 posted on 03/10/2021 8:45:44 PM PST by rlmorel ("I’d rather enjoy a risky freedom than a safe servitude." Robby Dinero, USMC Veteran, Gym Owner)
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To: Alberta's Child

That’s exactly when I knew the country was doomed, too.
Yeah, 15 days to slow the spread/flatten the curve for hospital resources was fine. Another 30 days, ok overkill but still ok as a just in case. Anything by the media, the hysteria, never ok.

Once the 30 days continued, it was a coup.

All the lost small businesses while Amazon, Walmart, Target,chain restaurants, profited. All the riots since May.

Saddest part, so many so called conservatives on this site chose communism/socialism/fascism/police state over freedom.A pandemic with a 99% recovery rate for most of society totally decimated tens of millions of middle class families.And during this “pandemic” the main issues and EOs, Advertisements, etc. are all about POC, etc. Amazing so many are so willing to give up their very freedom for BS.

This last year opened my eyes to so much. I gave the ok to finally move out of this communist state. Bought land and started building a house in Florida. House listed on Monday. Showings on Tuesday and today. Many offers $30,000 plus over listing price (NJ) and by next week if not earlier contracts signed. Leaving four adult kids, tons of family and friends. If I’m gonna live in a communist country, it’s gonna be in paradise. And they’ll always be a way to see my kids.

We chose Florida for a few reasons but the main one is how it will be the least likely to ever lock down again while also being a tropical climate.


71 posted on 03/10/2021 8:55:34 PM PST by Twink
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To: wardaddy

Exactly. And that’s what made me realize, even the most conservative, freedom loving people, were sheep/falling for safety over freedom. I get being scared for oneself and family. I don’t understand expecting or mandating that everyone else has to be and if they aren’t then that means they’re selfish or something.


72 posted on 03/10/2021 9:14:27 PM PST by Twink
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To: volunbeer

My son’s senior year last year...Class of 2020. It was supposed to be an extended Spring break because of Covid. A week extra. Two weeks extra. They never went back. His last quarter as a senior was spent at home. No graduation. Not a tragedy of tragedies, but he won’t have those memories.

My daughter is still at home. I think she has the opportunity to go back after Spring Break. But no sports for her. She did go to volleyball tryouts today. But she missed swimming and wrestling earlier this school year. And her grades aren’t good because of this online stuff.


73 posted on 03/10/2021 9:36:16 PM PST by beaversmom
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To: volunbeer

I stopped reading after the whiney leftist statement about the federal government abdicating leadership during covid. States pretty much did what a Constitutionalist would expect.. their own thing.
Unfortunately the working class and conservative states are on the hook to bail out pensions and fund CA,and nyc and every other dem catastrophe.


74 posted on 03/11/2021 12:20:37 AM PST by momincombatboots (Ephesians 6... who you are really at war with)
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To: volunbeer

Interesting, but Propublica is a left wing organization. I know that a story is a story, but be careful of the bias.


75 posted on 03/11/2021 3:00:20 AM PST by Amberdawn (Want To Honor Our Troops? Then Be A Citizen Worth Fighting For.)
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To: rlmorel; Twink; All
Maybe that's what I missed early on. I never "saw images of people falling dead in the street in Communist China" at all. If you DID see anything like that, and reacted to it by letting your government run roughshod over you, then count yourself among the sheep who bought the totalitarian government propaganda -- hook, line and sinker.

When you live your life according to principles instead of childish emotion, you don't fall for this crap very easily. Some of us were "lone voices in the wilderness" even here on FR last year. Even at the very start of this fiasco when not a lot was known publicly, there were too many cases where the measures imposed were ludicrous and irrational by any objective measure. For example, I said from the start that it made no sense to shut down businesses and impose all kinds of pathetic mask mandates while the New York City subway system -- arguably the worst place on the planet in terms of transmission risk for diseases -- was still operating.

Some of us knew that "fifteen days to flatten the curve" was never going to end. I warned my business associates accordingly at the time: "Forget about fifteen days. If you accept this bullsh!t for even 15 minutes, you are never going to be doing 'business as usual' again."

I hope it was all worth it, folks. Now put your mask -- or is it three masks? -- on and wait for your instructions from Chairman Xao Bai Den.

76 posted on 03/11/2021 3:41:55 AM PST by Alberta's Child ("And once in a night I dreamed you were there; I canceled my flight from going nowhere.")
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To: Alberta's Child

You missed the point of my post entirely. Never mind.


77 posted on 03/11/2021 6:15:11 AM PST by rlmorel ("I’d rather enjoy a risky freedom than a safe servitude." Robby Dinero, USMC Veteran, Gym Owner)
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To: rlmorel

I actually agree with everything you posted after the first sentence or two. LOL.


78 posted on 03/11/2021 6:24:25 AM PST by Alberta's Child ("And once in a night I dreamed you were there; I canceled my flight from going nowhere.")
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To: Amberdawn

Bias is everywhere, but ironically the author made our point far better than most.

The negatives of lockdowns are worse than any positives.... especially for children.


79 posted on 03/11/2021 6:34:16 AM PST by volunbeer (Find the truth and accept it - anything else is delusional)
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To: momincombatboots

You stopped reading far too soon. Yes, I caught that sentence as well, but the author goes on to tell a story that is impactful and makes a case we would agree with.


80 posted on 03/11/2021 6:37:46 AM PST by volunbeer (Find the truth and accept it - anything else is delusional)
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